Art Trap Productions

The Original Voice of the Daleks Dies.

The original voice of the Daleks Roy Skelton has passed away at the age of 79 after suffering a stroke.

He was also know for providing the voices to the British ITV kids Programme "Rainbow" where his voice talents were used for the Puppets Zippy and George.

A short bio follows taken from "The Manchester Evening News"

He joined the National Association of Boys' Clubs Travelling Theatre straight from school and worked at the Oldham Repertory, now known as the Coliseum, and was stage manager at the Fairbottom Street venue for six months before launching his acting career at the Bristol Old Vic.

Mr Skelton moved into television and worked on children's shows Toytown and Picture Book.

He also appeared in several films including the Alfred Hitchcock classic "Frenzy".

However, he will be best known for providing the chilling voices of the Daleks in the long-running science fiction show.

Mr Skelton, a man of many talents, also created the voices for the Zippy and George characters in the now iconic Rainbow kids programme.

He helped start the show in the early 1970s, expecting it to last for six weeks, but was still performing as Zippy and George 20 years later.

In the world of Doctor Who, Roy Skelton did much more than Dalek voices. He was the one of the two original voices of the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet and The Wheel in Space - his only voice work for cybermen (the cybermen actors took on the voices afterwards, for the most part)

He also played many other characters throughout the series as well. They include The computer voice in The Ice Warriors, one of the Kroton voices in The Krotons, Norton in Colony In Space, James in The Green Death, Chedaki in The Android Invasion, King Rokon in The Hand of Fear.

And don't forget his incredible list of voices credits as Daleks in the stories Evil of the Daleks, Planet of the Daleks (and he did Wester in this story as well), Genesis of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks, The Five Doctors, Revelation of the Daleks, and Remembrance of the Daleks.

He also appeared on a Big Finish production of Sarah Jane Smith, specifically the story Test of Nerve.

Not to mention his work in children's programs as Zippy and George on the series Rainbow.

However I must make a correction - he was not the original voice of the Daleks. That honor goes to David Graham and Peter Hawkins from The Daleks (AKA The Dead Planet).